Heart on a Wire
by V0XX
Summary: "She never expected to find a human she couldn't kill. He had forgotten how it felt to have someone to live for." Fluff (may create a full story if this has good reception. Now a TWOSHOT by popular request.)
1. Chapter 1

"Mariko."

She never expected to find a human she couldn't kill.

"Come on, it's freezing out," he says. His brittle arms reach to lift her, to bring her close to his chest and into a warm embrace. "You'll catch your death."

Wide eyes stare up at him, tainted like blood and roses. Pink locks of hair dance around her young features, catching in the cool wind.

She focuses a single vector, tense and recoiled, and just as his hand is about to graze her own, Mariko sends it lurching forward. It tears through the weak flesh, breaking rib, and severing muscle. The fool laughs even as she decimates his feeble body.

The Diclonius grins as she claims her prize, the man's still beating heart. She dangles it in front of him, watching it pulsate, and ooze crimson liquid, shriveling to husk with her hands' touch.

He collapses before her, to his knees with a smile, dark eyes lit with life. His last breath is a murmured chuckle, lost to the air and the wind. White particles of breath fade in the current as if to signify his departure.

"…Moron," she whispers, after a moment of silence. She tosses the heart aside. It lands in the heavy snow. A bloody blackened paperweight stains the white snow red as it sinks into obscurity.

Mariko turns to leave, but finds her chair caught in the icy surface below. She summons a hand to free herself, peering over the edge of the chair to find the disturbance. She resists her natural inclination to shiver at the cold, instead hugging herself with her remaining physical arm.

The chair quite suddenly is dislodged; it tips, spilling the young girl into the icy snow. Unable to catch herself in time, Mariko lets out a small cry. Her physical body isn't accustomed to the cold, nor is it suited for any sort of strenuous circumstance, having been restrained since birth. Her hands lift her from the ground, right the chair, and set her in it, but they can do no more. The young girl is soaking wet, already numbing from her toes up, and dressed in only a sopping dress shirt and skirt. Hands are useful for all sorts of things, but they lack the capacity to provide warmth.

No, Vectors can't provide warmth, and Mariko is but a five year-old girl with the constitution of a newborn.

She never imagined it would end like this.

"Mariko."

He rises behind her, from his knees to his feet and is at her side in an instant. "What are you still doing out here? You're soaking."

Wide eyes stare up at him, tainted like blood and roses. Dark eyes return the look, lit to a cold violet, stained like bruises and ink and indigo. A single, small arm raises to him in a wordless invitation, and he lifts her onto his hip, zipping her into his jacket to shield her from the cold.

So Mariko lay there, snuggled up in his jacket and pressed against that warm, beating chest, a comfort she never expected to find. Not one thought of the man's sudden resurrection enters her mind; only that he is alive, and he is warm, so warm.

And she couldn't kill him if she tried.

"Lelouch," she mutters into the folds of his shirt. "You are such an idiot."

He chuckles and gingerly strokes her hair. His fingers weave around her horns without pause. "Is that a crime?" he asks playfully.

Mariko nods slightly, her eyes still closed. "One punishable by death," she yawns.

He laughs lightheartedly and grins at her. "I'd like to see you try."


	2. Chapter 2

"Moron."

He often finds himself wondering if this is some sort of cruel karma for using the phrase so often in his past life.

"Yes, Mariko?" he chuckles, hoisting her a bit higher on his hip as he reaches for his room card. He inserts it in the lock, and waits for the green light. When none appears, he simply sighs and tries it again, knowing that cheap motel cards never register the first time. The girl watches the action, her impatience growing with each failed attempt. She glares at the offending lock.

"Can I do it?" she asks, and he pauses mid swipe. "Huh?"

How articulate; Mariko rolls her eyes and gestures toward the door. Lelouch, astonished by the innocent request, nods his consent and hands her the card, lowering her to the door. She must be freezing, he thinks, but to show an interest in something so commonplace... it was an innocent sort of curiosity, one he'd never experienced first hand.

The door sparks, and the handle falls to the floor with a loud clatter. Mariko smiles and sticks her fingers through the resulting hole. After a moment of stunned stillness, Lelouch allows himself a flicker of a smile at her antics, even knowing he would have to pay to have the door fixed. How it's possible to be simultaneously so innocent and so incredibly destructive is beyond him. The smile stiffens.

He pulls her into his arms and carries her through the doorway, shuffling the lock inside with his toe before setting the silpelit child onto his bed and swaddling her in the warm sheets. She breathes a contented sigh, nestling into the comforter. Is this what a real bed feels like?

Lelouch slides the broken lock back into its place, closing the door, and locking it with the interior deadbolt. When he turns back to the room, there is a large white ball of fabric where there was once a small girl, and he has to dig through the sheets to reclaim her.

"Mariko, wake up," he says in a hushed voice. She lay in a fetal position, clutching the sheets between her chest and knees, and the comforter over that. Luckily, her pigmentation seems to be returning to normal– the pale, ruddy hue of a child rather than the deathly white of wraith. Her clothes are nearly dry by now, but her hair is still sopping wet. In the dim light, it casts pink shadows onto the sheets like wet dye.

The gentle rise and fall of her chest is a strange thing. It stutters, like her heart is limping in its ribbed cage, not quite accustomed to the excitement of the real world. And yet she sleeps, appearing to the world so young and peaceful. Lelouch finds himself smiling, although he can't quite place why.

At last, the teen relents with a sigh, resigning himself to wakefulness. He takes a loose shirt from his bag, and a stack of bath towels from the restroom before returning to pry her from the blankets and dry her off.

As it turns out, her vectors function even in sleep.

She tosses him across the room with a resounding _thump. _Red bleeds out from his hairline, skull jagged beneath the skin. Still, not bad for an involuntary response.

Mariko murmurs something in her sleep and turns, lifting him onto the bed beside her with a vector. Her _hands_ grip his limp body like a child clutching a plush, before she feels his warm, thick bloody against her cheek.

She awakens with that, her eyes still cloudy and glazed with sleep, but they sharpen into focus upon sighting his crumpled body. Pushing herself to her knees, she finds her body stiff and shaky– she shivers and shoves him away from her, his eyes wide open with no sign of the life contained in them.

She wonders briefly if knot in her throat is also a result of the cold, before realizing what a stupid thought that is. Of course it's the cold, what else could cause a feeling like this?

Still, her stomach flips as she gazes into those empty violet eyes, glazed and hollow, like a doll's, and she feels herself moving involuntarily. Her cold hands against his chest, still with a fleeting warmth, shaking him with every vestige of strength contained in her frail arms. When he doesn't wake, she's quick to switch tactics.

"You moron," she scoffs, and turns away, pulling the sheets overhead to shield her from his gaze, and squeezing her eyes shut tight.

She doesn't know when she started crying, but she did at some point, because when she wakes the next morning, her cheeks are wet and her eyes are red, and there's a man where her blanket used to be, who's heart pounds under her weight, and who smiles at the sight of her eyes fluttering open, tainted like blood and roses, wet with dew.


End file.
